Covering SMX Local and Mobile – Frazier Miller Keynote

I’m at the SMX Local and Mobile conference in San Francisco, and will be covering some of the notable things that come out of the conference. Also, I’m hoping to meet some of the folks I’ve connected with online, including Greg Sterling, Michael Jensen, Andrew Shotland, David Mihm and others. As you would expect, there is quite a bit of Local Search and Local Advertising expertise at this event today!

I just finished listening to Frazier Miller – GM of Yahoo Local give the keynote for the event. Here is a brief summary of some of the things that stood out for me:

100 Million users per month visit Yahoo and search with “local intent.”

Local and Mobile is an “explosive growth” area, he is calling it a perfect storm with three primary market drivers: 1) User’s desire to bridge their online and offline worlds, 2) Advertiser’s incessant drive for ROI, 3) Mobilization of the masses.

According to ComScore, local search has grown 76% year-over-year over the past 12 months, accelerating from 23% growth in prior years.

Local searches per “searcher” has typically been 7-8 per month, and has accelerated to 11-12 per month over the past year.

Ecommerce online shopping was $150B last year, offline was 10x that. But an estimated $500B of offline spend was influenced by online research last year. 89% of shoppers research online before buying. Interestingly, as I mentioned in my post The Essence of Great Customer Service, 52% of people who shop online do research at Amazon.com.

Trends he sees (and local opportunity areas):

Better navigation of government services

Ability to plan and suggest local events

Local shopping and product search

Also, I’m trying to use Michael Jensen’s super cool LiveTwitting app to both cover the event and see what others are saying about it. Also, follow me on Twitter for more updates – I hope to see you online or at the show!